Totally New, Strange and with a touch of Finland

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The 1949-51 Nash Airflyte featured radically modern looks by contemporary standards. Under the streamlined skin waited a well proven Nash powerline and chassis with many Nash patents. Relatively light but very strong unitary construction was one of Nash's better ideas – like the Weather-Eye heater with the pioneering air filter/de-humitizing system.

Since the beginning of the Nash automobile manufacturing back in 1916 they were among the most modern ones in their class. The driving force behind Nash's technical advancements was Nils E. Wahlberg, a Finnish born but mainly Swiss educated gentleman who had shown his exceptional talents with General Motors and other big American companies before Nash.

Airflyte, the most ambitious project of Wahlberg's career, was started during the WWII, under Charles Nash's personal supervision but it was finished only after the postwar car buying boom was fading. Young designers Holden Koto and Ted Pietsch suggested the Airflyte's very sleek basic desing to the Nash-Kelvinator Corporation in 1943 and while it obviously inspired Wahlberg and his co-worker Theodore Ulrich, Koto and Pietsch got no compensation whatsoever.

When finally introduced to the public, the Airflyte proved to be an instant hit. Nash production rose to new heights and majority of the automotive journalists found it well constructed and carefully finished product with very pleasant highway characteristics.

Six cylinder engines with 82 or 112 hp proved to be powerful enough to make Nash one of the fastest stock cars of the late 40's. All the hours spend in the windtunnel of the University of Witchita paid off handsomely. The Airflyte design was so popular and capable that only minor improvements were required during the 3 year model run. The radically modern design was outdated soon afterwards and only the strong basic structure saved thousands of Airflytes from rust and crusher.

The car in our pictures is originally from rust free Utah and was imported to Finland in 1989 to serve as a parts donor to a similar Finnish Ambassdor with serious rust issues. However, the donor was in so much better shape that it eventually replaced the original restoration project. It served its owner more than decade with only very few mechanical problems but few years ago he decided to restore it to its original glory as seen here.

Full story in Mobilisti, the classic car magazine of Finland

 Words by Kimmo Koistinen, Pictures by Matti Oivinen, Mobilisti

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